For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity • Hacker News Board

Re: For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity

#371

Post by titanomachy » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 4:01 AM UTC

Balgair wrote: post #329

unapologetic wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They all want to get to the point of being Tesla. Hiding features only in software, pushing out updates, and trying to bake in a living (recurring revenue) model. It's a problem for a lot of reasons. First off it's the complete death of ownership. I can't fix things. At some point they will probably just lock stuff back down if I want to sell, assuming I can even sell without them getting a cut. Second, repairability…

> I can't fix things. This one sticks out to me from a job-market POV. Plumbers are already on par with psychiatrists in terms of pay. Sure, the work is hard, but from a supply-demand POV, the markets are saying that they do work that is of equal value (all this varies highly, but stick with me here). Most repair work takes a LOT of experience until the employee is anywhere near proficient. Farmers will tell you that…

Quick look at usnews suggests median plumber (in US) makes ~50k and median psychiatrist makes ~200k. I'm sure there are some plumbers that make more than some psychiatrists, but that doesn't really support the assertion that the market values their skills equally.

Re: For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity

#372

Post by tintor » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 4:06 AM UTC

macinjosh wrote: post #98

My grandfather, rest his soul, was a 3rd generation rancher and farmer. He bought 2 John Deere tractors in the '80s and used them for 35 years. They are still being used to this day on the ranch. Growing up, I visited the ranch regularly. Farming and ranching is very hard on equipment so the tractors often needed repair. My father and grandfather could seemingly fix anything on the tractor without even needing to go…

"Corporations want tractors as a service"

Those same self-driving-tractor-as-a-service companies can offer service to farmers also!

Re: For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity

#373

Post by TaylorAlexander » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 4:10 AM UTC

ethbro wrote: post #370

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I'm designing a solar powered farming machine we hope we can make open source. A bunch of the parts can be printed on a $1000 printer. I hate proprietary technology, and I think our entire economy should consist of open/libre technology. It definitely feels like "big business" is working against us in this regard. Everything new is locked down because the the rent-seeking those software locks enable. It's a drag…

Do you have any idea how the Global Village Construction Set folks are doing? Or any other similar projects in the space? I stumbled across open source ag / construction efforts years ago, but haven't kept tabs on them since. And thanks for spending your time on something so useful to society!

I don’t know how those folks are doing. I’ve seen that farmbot just released new products though. Last I checked farmbot did open source right.

And thanks for the kind words! I have been pretty sick of working jobs that don’t broadly benefit society. I’m blessed to be working at a beautiful farm on open source tech!

Re: For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity

#374

Post by shakna » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 4:11 AM UTC

nine_k wrote: post #345

NicoJuicy wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tractor as a service will only bite them back. Look at how popular 40-year old tractors are :) It's never been a better time to create a good old repairable machine.

I disagree. It's never been harder to compete by producing a long-term, very reliable machine. * You have to make your machine good the first time. The customer buys it completely, no chance to update and fix things. * Your machine is marketed as reliable. This means it has to be reliable, so you put a lot of effort / material / money into your machine, when your competition puts in much less. * If your machine is in…

It looks like the standard business model of sell product, receive payment might not be the best idea for something like this, but there are other models.

What if the primary form of business is selling the parts instead? Then repair shops become the primary customer, with home repairs and selling the actual vehicle just being the PR model for adoption?

You say they won't need many spare parts. But thanks to emissions regulations, they'll still have to have plenty of electrical components, and those do still break. Easily.

Even on the old-style tractors, I've still replaced plenty of parts. Things do break. Simple things that are easy to replace, but you still need the parts. Clutches, bearings, etc. Tractors are exposed to harsh environments for most of their lives. Plenty never ever come indoors.

The engines don't often need replacing. But plenty of other things still do.

Re: For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity

#375

Post by thulecitizen » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 4:15 AM UTC

killjoywashere wrote: post #352

unapologetic wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They all want to get to the point of being Tesla. Hiding features only in software, pushing out updates, and trying to bake in a living (recurring revenue) model. It's a problem for a lot of reasons. First off it's the complete death of ownership. I can't fix things. At some point they will probably just lock stuff back down if I want to sell, assuming I can even sell without them getting a cut. Second, repairability…

> I don't want a car where someone can push safety critical changes the way we push shitty software updates now. I don't trust them to get it right. I don't want to be sold a car that tries to kill me after a mandatory software update. It's not needed, and it's a bad idea. I don't want a bridge where someone can make repairs the way we make shitty pothole repairs now. I don't trust them to get it right. I don't want…

> Here's a neat idea: maybe regulating software engineering like other engineering disciplines is actually overdue? Yet at the same time, failure rate will never be zero.

Please could you describe this more? I’m intrigued.

I don’t know anything about this and what systems or mechanisms are used to regulate engineering, so any links or simple explanations are appreciated!

Re: For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity

#376

Post by golergka » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 4:17 AM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #306

stjohnswarts wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what's being overlooked is "it's good for businesses in the short term" not necessarily good for them in the long term.

But it needs to be followed with observing that the market doesn't give two damns about long term, because anyone optimizing for long-term profitability eventually gets outcompeted by someone optimizing for shorter-term profitability.

Did it help Boeing?

Re: For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity

#377

Post by Balgair » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 4:40 AM UTC

heavyset_go wrote: post #361

strken wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a source for plumbers being on par with psychiatrists? I have friends in the trades (back in Australia) and my impression is that their pay isn't as high as is commonly believed.

Going to need a source, as well. Whenever these statistics are trotted out, they use figures from a few standard deviations to the right of the mean income, where the trades-person is usually self-employed at their own business that employs many others.

The point was not to talk about plumbers, it was to reference the meme, so as to remind/give the reader a baseline idea that manual labor is not valued as the work itself, but the supply/demand.

Re: For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity

#378

Post by nine_k » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 4:47 AM UTC

NicoJuicy wrote: post #348

nine_k wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. It's never been harder to compete by producing a long-term, very reliable machine. * You have to make your machine good the first time. The customer buys it completely, no chance to update and fix things. * Your machine is marketed as reliable. This means it has to be reliable, so you put a lot of effort / material / money into your machine, when your competition puts in much less. * If your machine is in…

Most things that break are electrical, not mechanical. The mechanics of reliable machines are taught in school and are widely available + relatively easy to repair. And I'm speaking from growing up in a village with the highest agricultural % of population in Belgium. Which my family is also pretty involved with ( my dad is a veterinarian for farm animals, my uncle has ~40 tractors) Also: a cousin with a garage, some…

> Because it's simple to fix and it didn't need a official licensed laptop to be serviced.

This is exactly my point.

Imagine that you are selling cars. If you sell a reliable, easy to fix car, you don't get any recurring revenue. But you need to make as much money as the competition who sells less reliable cars, and more because you can't cut corners. So your upfront cost is higher.

The competition, which sells less reliable cars, can ask much less upfront, and offset this by some recurring revenue from fixing it periodically at licensed mechanic shops that pass a cut to the manufacturer.

This is very much like inkjet printers are sold at a loss, and the money is made on selling the ink which is regularly needed. But with cars (tractors, etc) the manufacturer sells maintenance / spare parts.

In this way, the manufacturers of service-intensive machines credit the buyer initially, but then more than make it up in the "interest" payments.

This is sad dynamics, but I don't see an easy way out of it.

I hope there exists a large enough segment of consumers who distinctly prefer the more expensive, more reliable; from your words, you seem to belong to it. But I'm not sure such consumers are a majority.

Re: For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity

#379

Post by Stratoscope » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 4:49 AM UTC

killjoywashere wrote: post #352

unapologetic wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They all want to get to the point of being Tesla. Hiding features only in software, pushing out updates, and trying to bake in a living (recurring revenue) model. It's a problem for a lot of reasons. First off it's the complete death of ownership. I can't fix things. At some point they will probably just lock stuff back down if I want to sell, assuming I can even sell without them getting a cut. Second, repairability…

> I don't want a car where someone can push safety critical changes the way we push shitty software updates now. I don't trust them to get it right. I don't want to be sold a car that tries to kill me after a mandatory software update. It's not needed, and it's a bad idea. I don't want a bridge where someone can make repairs the way we make shitty pothole repairs now. I don't trust them to get it right. I don't want…

You may have some good points, but when you quote someone word for word, substituting your own words for some of theirs, you are twisting their words and putting words in their mouth, in essence ridiculing them. That rarely leads to a civil discussion that other people can learn from.

I realize that this kind of misquoting is a traditional "hacker" style of debate. But speaking only for myself, it really rubs me the wrong way.

If you disagree with someone, don't resort to cheap shots like that. Make your point in your own words and with your own logic. You will have a stronger argument and a better chance of informing and educating the rest of us.

Re: For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity

#380

Post by nine_k » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 4:49 AM UTC

combatentropy wrote: post #365

NicoJuicy wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most things that break are electrical, not mechanical. The mechanics of reliable machines are taught in school and are widely available + relatively easy to repair. And I'm speaking from growing up in a village with the highest agricultural % of population in Belgium. Which my family is also pretty involved with ( my dad is a veterinarian for farm animals, my uncle has ~40 tractors) Also: a cousin with a garage, some…

> I'd actually buy a mechanical environmental-friendly car. I agree. In fact an electric car could be simple. Just because it has an electric motor doesn't mean it has to have a computer too.

It has to have a computer, the way your ICE car has a computer, or maybe the way your washing machine or a microwave has a computer (they all do).

It should serve the driver, and be low-profile and unobtrusive.